Leon Trotsky’s Writings On
Britain

The Programme of Peace

Introduction by Jack Bernard

Trotsky revised these articles in
May 1917 and they were reprinted in the form of a programmatic pamphlet in
the Bolshevik press in Russia in June 1917. An abridged version was first
made available in English in the volume The Proletarian Revolution in
Russia, by Lenin and Trotsky, published in 1919 under the editorship of
Louis C. Fraina. A revised but likewise abridged version appeared in the
May 1942 issue of Fourth International. This translation by John
G. Wright is an unexpurgated text based on the Russian text as given in the
1923 edition of Trotsky’s Collected Works, vol. II, pp.
462-82, issued by State Publishers in Moscow. It appeared in Fourth
International, September 1944, pp. 279-86 from where the above facts
have been lifted but not verified.

This text, together with his 1923 discussion article Is
the Time Ripe for the Slogan: “The United States of Europe"?[1]
constitute an elaboration of Trotsky’s conception of The United
States of Europe as a transitional slogan.

In its September 1944 publication, the title of
“The Peace Programme” bears the flyer. “The Socialist
United States of Europe”. This flyer may have been added by the
editors of Fourth International since the text of the article does not
contain this slogan but simply “The United States of
Europe”. The content given to the latter slogan by Trotsky was not
that of a ‘Socialist Europe’ but merely “a
democratically united Europe freed from state and tariff
barriers”.

1. What Is a Programme of Peace?

What is a programme of peace? From the viewpoint of the ruling classes or of
the parties subservient to them, it is the totality
of those demands, the realization of which must be ensured by the power
of militarism. Hence, for the realization of Alilyukov’s
“peace programme” Constantinople must he conquered by force
of arms. Vandervelde’s “peace programme” requires the
expulsion of the Germans from Belgium as an antecedent condition. From
this standpoint the peace clauses merely draw the balance sheet of what
has been achieved by force of arms. In other words, the peace programme
is the war programme. But, that is how matters stood prior to the
intervention of the third power, the Socialist International. For the
revolutionary proletarian the peace programme does not mean the demands
which national militarism must fulfil, but those demands which the
international proletariat intends to impose by its revolutionary struggle
against militarism of all countries. The more the world revolutionary
movement unfolds the less do the peace questions depend on the purely
military position of the belligerents, the less becomes the danger that
peace conditions may be understood by the masses as war aims.

This is rendered most clear to us by the question of the fate of small
nations and weak states.

The war began with a devastating invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg by
the German armies. In the echo created by the violation of the small
country, beside the false and egotistic anger of the ruling classes of the
enemy, there reverberated also the genuine indignation of the popular
masses whose sympathy was attracted by the fate of a small people, crushed
only because they happened to lie between two warring giants.

At that first stage of the war the fate of Belgium attracted attention
and sympathy owing to its extraordinary tragic nature. But thirty-four
months of military operations have proved that the Belgian episode
constituted only the first step towards the solution of the fundamental
problem of the imperialist war, namely, the subjection of the weak by
the strong.

Capitalism has transferred into the field of international relations the
same methods applied by it in “regulating" the internal economic life of
the nations. The path of competition is the path of systematically
annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises and of achieving the
supremacy of big capital. World competition of the capitalist forces means
the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations
by the great and greatest capitalist powers. The more developed the
technique of capitalism, the greater the role played by finance capital and
the higher the demands of militarism, all the more grows the dependency of
the small states on the great powers. This process, forming as it does an
integral element of imperialist mechanics, flourishes undisturbed also in
times of peace by means of state loans, railway and other concessions,
military-diplomatic agreements, etc. The war uncovered and accelerated this
process by introducing the factor of open violence. The war destroys the
last shreds of the “independence" of small states, quite apart from the
military outcome, of the conflict between the two basic enemy camps.

Belgium still groans under the yoke of German militarism. This, however,
is but the visible sanguinary and dramatic expression of the collapse of
her independence. The ‘liberation" of Belgium does not at all
confront the Allied governments as an independent task. Both in the further
progress of the war and after its conclusion, Belgium will become but a
pawn in the great game of the capitalist giants. Failing the intervention
of the third power—the revolution -Belgium may as a result of the war
remain in German bondage, or fall under the yoke of Great Britain, or be
divided between the powerful robbers of the two coalitions. The same
applies to Serbia, whose national energy served as a weight in the
imperialist world scales whose fluctuations to one side or the other are
least of all influenced by the independent interests of the Serbian
people.

The Central Powers drew Turkey and Bulgaria into the whirlpool of the
war. Whether both these countries will remain as the south-eastern organ of
the Austro-German imperialist bloc (“Central Europe”) or will serve as
small change when the balance sheet is drawn up, the fact remains that the
war is writing a final chapter of the history of their independence.

Before the outbreak of the Russian revolution, the independence of
Persia, which had been terminated in principle by the Anglo-Russian
agreement of 1907, was most obviously liquidated.

Romania and Greece furnish us with a sufficiently clear example
of how limited a 1reedom of choice” is given to small-state firms by the
struggle of the imperialist trust companies. Romania preferred the gesture
of an apparently free choice, when she sacrificed her neutrality. Greece
tried by means of passive opposition to “remain at home”. As if to show
most tangibly the futility of the whole “neutralist” struggle for
self-preservation, the whole European war, represented by the armies of
Bulgaria, Turkey, France, England, Russia and Italy, shifted on to Greek
territory. Freedom of choice comes down at best to a form of
self-elimination. In the end, both Romania and Greece will share the same
fate: they will he the stakes in the hands of the great gamblers.

At the other end of Europe, little Portugal deemed it necessary to enter
the war on the side of the Allies. Her decision might seem inexplicable if,
in the question of participation in the dog fight, Portugal, which is under
English protection, had had greater freedom than the government of Tver
province or Ireland.

The capitalist summits of Holland and of the three
Scandinavian countries are accumulating mountains of gold, thanks
to the war. However, these four neutral states of North-Western Europe are
the most aware of the illusory character of their “sovereignty”, which,
even if it survives the war, will nevertheless be subject to the settlement
of the bills advanced by the peace conditions of the Great Powers.

“Independent”, Poland will be able, in the midst of imperialist Europe,
to keep hanging her shingle of independence only by submitting to a slavish
financial and military dependence on one of the great cups of the ruling
powers.

The extent of the independence of Switzerland clearly appeared in the
compulsory restrictive measures adopted regulating her imports and exports.
The representatives of this small federative republic who, cap in hand, go
begging at the entrances of the two warring camps, can well understand the
limited measure of independence and neutrality possible for a nation which
cannot muster several millions of bayonets.

If the war, in consequence of the ever-increasing number of combatants
and of fronts, has become an equation with many unknowns thus rendering it
impossible for the different governments to formulate the so-called “war
aims”, then the small states still have the doubtful advantage that their
historical fate may be reckoned as predetermined. No matter which side
proves victorious, and however far-reaching the influence of such a victory
may be, the fact remains that there can no longer be a return to
independence for the small states. Whether Germany or England wins—in
either case the question to be determined is who will be the direct master
over the small nations. Only charlatans or hopeless simpletons are capable
of linking up the question of the freedom of the small peoples with the
victory of one side or the other.

Exactly the same result would follow the third and most likely outcome
of the war, that is, its ending in a draw. The absence of pronounced
preponderance of one of the warring camps over the other will serve only to
disclose all the more clearly the preponderance of the strong over the weak
within each of the camps, and the preponderance of both over the “neutral”
victims of imperialism. The termination of the war without conquerors or
conquered is by itself no guarantee for anybody: all small and weak states
will none the ‘less be conquered, and the same applies to
those who were bled white on the battlefields as to those who tried to
escape that fate by hiding in the shadows of neutrality.

The independence of the Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians and others
is regarded by us not as part of the Allied war programme (as treated by
Guesde, Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Henderson and others), but belongs to the
programme of the international proletarian struggle against
imperialism.

11. Status Quo Ante Bellum

But the question is: Can the proletariat under the present circumstances
advance an independent “peace programme, that is, its own solutions of the
problems which caused the current war or which have been disclosed in the
course of this war?

We have been told that the proletariat does not now command sufficient
forces to bring about the realization of such a programme. Utopian is the
hope that the proletariat could realize its own peace programme as a
consequence of the present war. Something else again is the struggle for
the cessation of the war and for a peace without annexation, i.e., a return
to the status quo ante bellum, to the state of affairs prior to the war.
This, we are told, is by far the more realistic programme. Such were, for
example, the arguments of Martov, Martynov and the Menshevik
Internationalists generally, who hold on this question as on all others not
a revolutionary but a conservative position (not a social revolution, but
the restoration of the class struggle; not the Third International, but the
re-establishment of the Second International; not the revolutionary peace
programme, but a return to status quo ante-bellum; not the conquest of
power by the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, but
preferring the power to bourgeois parties… ). In what sense, however,
may the term realistic he applied to a fight for ending the war and for
peace without annexations? That the war must end sooner or later is
incontestable. In this anticipatory sense the slogan of ending the war is
unquestionably very “realistic” for it banks on a certainty. But what is it
in the revolutionary sense? It may be objected: isn’t it utopian to
hope that the European proletariat, with its present forces, will succeed
in halting military operations against the will of the ruling classes?
Furthermore, we ask. under what circumstances can the end of the war be
brought about? Theoretically, three typical possibilities may here be
considered: (1) a decisive victory of one of the belligerent sides; (2) a
general exhaustion of the opponents without a decisive preponderance of one
over the other; (3) the intervention of the revolutionary proletariat which
interrupts the “normal” development of military events.

It is quite obvious that in the first case—if the war is ended by
a decisive victory of one side—it would be naive to dream of a peace
without annexations. If the Scheidemanns and Landsbergs, the staunch
supporters of the work of their militarism, make speeches in parliament in
favour of an “annexationless” peace, it is only with the firmest conviction
that such protests can hinder no “useful” annexations. On the other hand,
one of our former Tsarist commanders-in-chief, General Alexeyev, who dubbed
the annexationless peace as “a utopian phrase”, concluded quite correctly
that the offensive is the chief thing, and that in case of successful war
operations everything else would come of itself. In order to wrest
annexations from the hands of the victorious side, which is armed to the
teeth, the proletariat would naturally require, in addition to its good
intentions, a revolutionary force which it will have to be ready to use
openly. In any case, it possesses no “economic” means whatever to compel
the victorious side to renounce the advantage of the victory gained.

The second possible outcome of the war, on which those who seek to
promote the narrow programme “annexationless peace and nothing more"
principally depend, presupposes that the war, exhausting as it does all the
resources of the warring nations will, without the revolutionary
intervention of the third power, end in general exhaustion—without
conquerors or conquered. To this very situation, where militarism is too
weak for elrecting conquests, and the proletariat for making a revolution,
the passive internationalists have adapted their lame programme of
“annexationless peace", which they frequently denote as a return to the
status quo ante bellum, i.e., the order of things prior to the war. Here,
however, this pseudo-realism lays bare its Achilles heel, for actually a
military stalemate, as already shown, does not at all exclude annexations,
but on the contrary presupposes them. That neither of the two powerful
groups wins, does not mean that Serbia, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Persia,
Syria, Armenia and others would be left intact. On the contrary, it is
precisely at the expense of these third and weakest parties that
annexations will in this case be carried out. In order to prevent these
reciprocal “compensations” the international proletariat must needs set
afoot a direct revolutionary uprising against the ruling classes. Newspaper
articles, convention resolutions, parliamentary protests and even public
demonstrations have never prevented the rulers from acquiring territories
or from oppressing the weak peoples either by way of victory or by means of
diplomatic agreements.

As regards the third possible outcome of the war, it seems to be the
clearest. It presupposes that while the war is still on, the international
proletariat rises with a force sufficient to paralyse and finally to stop
the war from below. Obviously, in this most favourable case, the
proletariat, having been powerful enough to stop the war, would be least
likely to be able or willing to limit itself to that purely conservative
programme which, goes no further than the renunciation of annexations.

A powerful movement of the proletariat is thus in each case a necessary
prerequisite of the actual realization of an annexationless peace. But
again, if we assume such a movement, the foregoing programme remains quite
miserly in that it acquiesces in the restoration of the order which
prevailed prior to the war and which gave birth to the war. The European
status quo ante bellum, the product of wars, robberies,
violations, legitimism, diplomatic stupidity and impotence of peoples,
remains as the only positive content of the slogan “without
annexations”.

In its struggle against imperialism, the proletariat cannot set up as
its political aim the return to the map of old Europe; it must advance its
own programme of state and national relations, corresponding to
the fundamental tendencies of economic development, corresponding to the
revolutionary character of the epoch and the socialist interests of the
proletariat.

The isolated slogan ‘without annexations” gives, first of all, no
criterion for a political orientation in the various problems posed by the
course of the war. Assuming that France later on occupies Alsace -Lorraine,
is the German Social Democracy together with Scheldemann bound to demand
the return of these provinces to Germany? Shall we demand the restitution
of the kingdom of Poland to Russia? Shall we insist upon Japan’s
giving Chio-Chau back to—Germany? Or that Italy yield back to its
owners that part of Trentino now occupied by her? That would be nonsense!
We should be fanatics of legitimism, i.e., defenders of dynastic and
‘historlc” rights in the spirit of the most reactionary diplomacy.
Besides, this “programme” likewise demands a revolution for its fulfilment.
In all these enumerated and in other similar cases we, confronted with the
concrete reality, shall naturally advance only one principle, namely,
consultation of the peoples concerned. This is certainly no absolute
criterion. The French “socialists” of the majority reduce the consultation
of the population of Alsace-Lorraine to a shameful comedy: first occupying
(that is, acquisition by force of arms) and then asking the
population’s consent to he annexed. It is quite clear that a real
consultation presupposes revolutionary conditions wherein the population
can give their reply without being threatened by a revolver, be it German
or French.

The only acceptable content of the slogan “without annexations” is thus
a protest, against new violent acquisitions, which amounts to giving a
negative expression to, the right of nations to self-determination. But we
have seen that this democratically unquestionable “right” is being and will
necessarily be transformed into the right of strong nations to make
acquisitions and impose oppression, whereas for the weak nations it will.
mean an impotent wish or a “scrap of paper”. Such will be the case as long
as the political map of Europe forces nations and their fractions within
the framework of states separated by tariff barriers and continually
brought into conflict by the imperialist struggle.

It is possible to overcome this régime only through the proletarian
revolution. Thus, the centre of gravity of the question lies in combining
the peace programme of the proletariat with that of the social
revolution.

III. The Right of Nations to Self Determination

We saw above that the Social Democracy in the solution of concrete
questions in the field of the regrouping and new formations of national
state groups, can make no step without the principle of national
self-determination, which latter in its last instance appears as the
recognition of the right of every national group to decide its state fate,
hence as the right of peoples to sever themselves from a given state (as
for instance from Russia or Austria). The only democratic way of getting to
know the “will” of a nation is the referendum. This democratic obligatory
reply will, however, in the manner described, remain purely formal. It does
not enlighten us with regard to the real possibilities, ways and means of
national self-determination under the modern conditions of capitalist
economy; and yet the crux of the matter lies precisely in this.

For many, if not for the majority of the oppressed nations, national
groups and sections, the meaning of self-determination is the cancellation
of the existing borders and the dismemberment of present states. In
particular, this democratic principle leads to the emancipation of the
colonies. Yet the whole policy of imperialism, regardless of the national
principle, aims at the extension of state borders, at the compulsory
incorporation of weak states within the customs border, and the acquisition
of new colonies. Imperialism is by its very nature both expansive and
aggressive and it is this quality that characterizes imperialism, and not
the changeable manoeuvres of diplomacy.

From which flows the perennial conflict between the principle of
national self-determination, which in many cases leads to state and
economic decentralization (dismemberment, separation), and the powerful
centralist tendencies of imperialism which has at its disposal the state
organization and the military power. True, a national-separatist movement
frequently finds support in the imperialist intrigues of a neighbouring
state. This support, however, can become decisive only through the
application of military force. And as soon as matters reach an armed
conflict between two imperialist organizations, the new state boundaries
will not be decided on the basis of the national principle, but on the
basis of the reciprocal relation of military forces. To compel a victorious
state to refrain from annexing newly conquered lands is as difficult as to
force it to grant the freedom of self-determination to previously acquired
provinces. Finally, even if by a miracle Europe were divided by force of
arms into fixed national states and small states, the national question
would not thereby be in the least decided and, the very next day after the
“just” national redistributions, capitalist expansion would resume its
work. Conflicts would arise, wars and new acquisitions, in complete
violation of the national principle in all cases where its preservation
cannot be maintained by a sufficient number of bayonets. It would all give
the impression of inveterate gamblers being forced to divide the gold
“justly” among themselves in the middle of the game, in order to start the
same game all over again with redoubled frenzy.

From the might of the centralist tendencies of imperialism, it does not
at all follow that we are obliged passively to submit to it. A national
community is the living hearth of culture, as the national language is its
living organ, and these will still retain their significance through
indefinitely long historical periods. The Social Democracy is desirous of
safeguarding and is obliged to safeguard to the national community its
freedom of development (or dissolution) in the interests of material and
spiritual culture. It is in this sense that it has taken over from the
revolutionary bourgeoisie the democratic principle of national
self-determination as a political obligation.

The right of national self-determination cannot he excluded from the
proletarian peace programme; but it cannot claim absolute importance. On
the contrary, it is delimited for us by the converging, profoundly
progressive tendencies of historical development. If this “right” must
be—through revolutionary force -counter-posed to the imperialist
methods of centralization which enslave weak and backward peoples and mush
the hearths of national culture, then on the other hand the proletariat
cannot allow the “national principle” to get in the way of the irresistible
and deeply progressive tendency of modern economic life towards a planned
organization throughout our continent, and further, all over the globe.
Imperialism is the capitalist-thievish expression of this tendency of
modern economy to tear itself completely away from the idiocy of national
narrowness, as it did previously with regard to local and provincial
confinement. While fighting against the imperialist form of economic
centralization, socialism does not at all take a stand against the
particular tendency as such but, on the contrary, makes the tendency its
own guiding principle.

From the standpoint of historical development as well as from the point
of view of the tasks of the Social Democracy, the tendency of modern
economy is fundamental, and it must be guaranteed the fullest opportunity
of executing its truly liberationist historical mission: to construct the
united world economy, independent of national frames, state and tariff
barriers, subject only to the peculiarities of the soil and natural
resources, to climate and the requirements of division of labour. Poles,
Alsatians, Dalmatians. Belgians, Serbians and other small weak European
nations not yet annexed, may be reinstated or set up for the first time in
the national configurations towards which they gravitate, and, above all,
will be able to remain within these configurations and freely develop their
cultural existence only to the extent to which as national groupings they
will cease to be economic groupings, will not be bound by state borders,
will not be separated from or opposed to one another, economically. In
other words, in order that Poles, Serbians, Romanians and others will be
able actually to form untrammelled national unifications, it is necessary
that the state boundaries now splitting them up into parts be cancelled,
that the framework of the state be enlarged as an economic but not as a
national organization, until it envelops the whole of capitalist Europe,
which is now cut asunder by tariffs and borders and torn by war. 7We state
unification of Europe is clearly a prerequisite of self-determination of
great and small nations of Europe. A national-cultural existence, free of
national economic antagonisms and based on real self-determination, is
possible only under the roof of a democratically united Europe freed from
state and tariff barriers.

This direct and immediate dependence of national self-determination of
weak peoples upon the collective European régime excludes the
possibility of the proletariat’s placing questions like the
independence of Poland or the uniting of all Serbs outside the European
revolution. But, on the other hand, this signifies that the right of
self-determination, as a part of the proletarian peace programme, possesses
not a “utopian” but a revolutionary character. This consideration is
directed to two addresses: against the German Davids and Landsbergs who
from the heights of their imperialist “realism” traduce the principle of
national independence as reactionary romanticism; and against the
simplifiers in our revolutionary camp who proclaim this principle to be
realizable only under socialism and who thereby rid themselves of the
necessity of giving a principled answer to the national questions which
have been posed point-blank by the war.

Between our present social condition and socialism there still lies an
extended epoch of social revolution, that is, the epoch of the open
proletarian struggle for power, the conquest and application of this power
with the aim of the complete democratization of social relations, and the
systematic transformation of capitalist society into the socialist society.
This is the epoch not of pacification and tranquillity but, on the
contrary, of the highest intensification of the class struggle, the epoch
of popular uprisings, wars, expanding experiments of the proletarian
régime, and socialist reforms. This epoch demands of the proletariat,
that it give a practical, that is, an immediately applicable answer to the
question of the further existence of nationalities and their reciprocal
relations with the state and the economy.

IV. The United States of Europe

We tried to prove in the foregoing that the economic and political
unification of Europe is the necessary prerequisite for the very
possibility of national self-determination. Just as the slogan of national
independence of Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and others remains an empty
abstraction without the supplementary slogan Federative Balkan Republic,
which played such an important role in the whole policy of the Balkan
Social Democracy; so, on the all-European scale, the principle of the
“right” to self-determination can he invested with flesh and blood only
under the conditions of a European Federative Republic.

But if on the Balkan peninsula the slogan of a democratic federation has
become purely proletarian, then this applies all the more to Europe with
her incomparably deeper capitalist antagonisms.

To bourgeois politics the destruction of “internal” European customs
houses is an insurmountable difficulty; but without this the inter-state
courts of arbitration and international law codes will have no firmer
duration than, for instance, Belgian neutrality. The urge toward unifying
the European market which like the effort towards the acquisition of
non-European backward lands, is caused by the development of capitalism,
runs up against the powerful opposition of the landed and capitalist
classes, in whose hands the tariff apparatus joined with that of militarism
(without which the former means nothing) constitutes an indispensable
weapon for exploitation and enrichment.

The Hungarian financial and industrial bourgeoisie is hostile to
economic unification with capitalistically more developed Austria. The
Austro -Hungarian bourgeoisie is hostile to the idea of a tariff union with
more powerful Germany. On the other hand, the German landowners will never
willingly consent to the cancellation of grain duties. Furthermore, the
economic interests of the propertied classes of the Central Empires cannot
be so easily made to coincide with the interests of the English, French,
Russian capitalists and landed gentry. The present war, speaks eloquently
enough on this score. Lastly, the disharmony and irreconcilability of
capitalist interests between the Allies themselves is more visible than in
the Central States. Under these circumstances, a halfway complete and
consistent economic unification of Europe coming from the top by means of
an agreement of the capitalist governments is sheer utopia. Here, the
matter can go no further than partial compromises and half-measures. Hence
it is that the economic unification of Europe, which offers colossal
advantages to producer and consumer alike, and in general to the whole
cultural development, becomes the revolutionary task of the European
proletariat in its struggle against imperialist protectionism and its
instrument—militarism.

The United States of Europe—without monarchies, standing
armies and secret diplomacy—is therefore the most important
integral part of the proletarian peace programme.

The ideologists and politicians of German imperialism frequently came
forward, especially at the beginning of the war, with their programme of a
European or at least a Central European ‘United States” (without France and
England on the one side and Russia on the other). The programme of a
violent unification of Europe is just as characteristic of the tendencies
of German imperialism as is the tendency of French imperialism whose
programme is the forcible dismemberment of Germany.

If the German armies achieved the decisive victory reckoned upon in
Germany during the first phase of the war, the German imperialism would
have doubtless made the gigantic attempt of realizing a compulsory
military-tariff union of European states, which would be constructed
completely of exemptions, compromises, etc., which would reduce to a
minimum the progressive meaning of the unification of the European market.
Needless to say, under such circumstances no talk would be possible of an
autonomy of the nations, thus forcibly joined together as the caricature of
the European United States. Certain opponents of the programme of the
United States of Europe have used precisely this perspective as an argument
that this idea can, under certain conditions, acquire a “reactionary"
monarchist-imperialist content. Yet it is precisely this perspective that
provides the most graphic testimony in favour of the revolutionary
viability of the slogan of the United States of Europe. Let us for a moment
grant that German militarism succeeds in actually carrying out the
compulsory half-union of Europe, just as Prussian militarism once achieved
the half-union of Germany, what would then be the central slogan of the
European proletariat? Would it be the dissolution of the forced European
coalition and the return of all peoples under the roof of isolated national
states? Or the restoration of “autonomous” tariffs, “national” currencies,
“national” social legislation, and so forth? Certainly not. The programme
of the European revolutionary movement would then be: The destruction of
the compulsory anti-democratic form of the coalition, with the preservation
and furtherance of its foundations, in the form of compete annihilation of
tariff barriers, the unification of legislation, above all of labour laws,
etc. In other words, the slogan of the United States of
Europe—without monarchies and standing armies—would under the
indicated circumstances become the unifying and guiding slogan of the
European revolution.

Let us assume the second possibility namely, an “undecided” issue of the
war. At the very beginning of the war, the well-known professor Liszt, an
advocate of “United Europe", argued that should the Germans fail to conquer
their opponents, the European unification would nevertheless be
accomplished, and in Liszt’s opinion it would be even more complete
than in the case of a German victory. By the ever growing need of
expansion, the European states, hostile to one another but unable to cope
with one another, would continue to hinder each other in the execution of
their “mission” in the Near East, Africa and Asia, and they would
everywhere be forced back by the United States of North America, and by
Japan. Precisely in case of a stalemate in the war, in Liszt’s
opinion, the indispensability of an economic and military agreement among
the European great powers would come to the fore against weak and backward
peoples, but above all of course, against their own working masses. We
pointed out above the colossal obstacles that lie in the way of realizing
this programme. Even a partial overcoming of these obstacles would mean the
establishment of an imperialist trust of European states, a predatory
share-holding association. And this perspective is on occasion adduced
unjustifiably as proof of the “danger” of the slogan of The United States
of Europe, whereas in reality this is the most graphic proof of its
realistic and revolutionary significance. If the capitalist states of
Europe succeeded in merging into an imperialist trust, this would be a step
forward as compared with the existing situation, for it would first of all
create a unified, all-European material base for the working class
movement. The proletariat would in this case have to fight not for the
return to “autonomous” national states, but for the conversion of the
imperialist state trust into a European Republican Federation.

However, the further the war progresses and reveals the absolute
incapacity of militarism to cope with the questions brought forward by the
war, the less is spoken about these great plans for the uniting of Europe
at the top. The plan of the imperialist ‘United States of Europe” has
given way to the plans, on the one side, of an economic union of
Austria-Germany and on the other side of the quadruple alliance with its
war tariffs and duties supplemented with militarism directed against one
another. After the foregoing it is needless to enlarge on the great
importance which, in the execution of these plans, the policy of the
proletariat of both state “trusts” will assume in fighting against the
established tariff and military-diplomatic fortifications and for the
economic union of Europe.

Now, after the so very promising beginning of the Russian revolution, we
have every reason to hope that during the course of this present war a
powerful revolutionary movement will be launched all over Europe. It is
clear that such a movement can succeed and develop and gain victory only as
a general European one. Isolated within national borders, it would he
doomed to disaster. Our social-patriots point to the danger which threatens
the Russian revolution from the side of German militarism. This danger is
indubitable, but it is not the only one. English, French, Italian
militarism is no less a dreadful enemy of the Russian revolution than the
Holienzollern war machine. The salvation of the Russian revolution lies in
its propagation all over Europe. Should the revolutionary movement unfold
in Germany; the German proletariat would look for and find a revolutionary
echo in the “hostile” countries of the West, and if in one of the European
countries the proletariat should snatch the power out of the hands of the
bourgeoisie, it would be bound, be it only to retain the power, to place it
at once at the service of the revolutionary movement in other countries. In
other words, the founding of a stable régime of proletarian
dictatorship would be conceivable only if it extended throughout Europe,
and consequently in the form of a European Republican Federation. The
state-unification of Europe, to be achieved neither by force of arms nor by
industrial and diplomatic agreements, would in such a case become the
unpostponable task of the triumphant revolutionary proletariat.

The United States of Europe is the slogan of the revolutionary epoch
into which we have entered. Whatever turn the war operations may take later
on, whatever balance sheet diplomacy may draw out of the present war, and
at whatever tempo the revolutionary movement will progress in the near
future, the slogan of the United States of Europe will in all cases retain
a colossal meaning as the political formula of the struggle of the European
proletariat for power. In this programme is expressed the fact that the
national state has outlived itself—as a framework for the development
of the productive forces, as a basis for the class struggle, and thereby
also as a state form of proletarian dictatorship. Our denial of “national
defence", as an outlived political programme for the proletariat, ceases to
be a purely negative act of ideological-political self-defence, and
acquires all its revolutionary content only in the event that over against
the conservative defence of the antiquated national fatherland we place the
progressive task, namely the creation of a new, higher “fatherland” of the
revolution, of republican Europe, whence the proletariat alone will he
enabled to revolutionize and to reorganize the whole world.

Herein, incidentally, lies the answer to those who ask dogmatically.
‘Why the unification of Europe and not of the whole world?” Europe is
not only a geographic term, but a certain economic and
cultural—historic community. The European revolution does not have to
wait for the revolutions in Asia and Africa nor even in Australia and
America. And yet completely victorious revolution in Russia or England is
unthinkable without a revolution in Germany, and vice-versa. The present
war is called a world war, but even after the intervention of the United
States, it is Europe that is the arena of war. And the revolutionary
problems confront first of all the European proletariat.

Of course, the United States of Europe will be only one of the two axes
of the world organization of economy. The United States of America will
constitute the other.

The only concrete historical consideration against the slogan of the
United States of Europe was formulated by the Swiss Sotsial Demokrat as
follows: ‘The unevenness of economic and political development is the
unconditional law of capitalism.[2] From this the Sotsial-Demokrat
draws the conclusion that the victory of socialism is possible in one
country and that it is needless therefore to make the dictatorship of the
proletariat in each isolated state conditional upon the creation of the
United States of Europe. That the capitalist development of various
countries is uneven is quite incontestable. But this unevenness is itself
extremely uneven. The capitalist levels of England, Austria, Germany or
France are not the same. But as compared with Africa and Asia all these
countries represent capitalist “Europe", which has matured for the
socialist revolution. It is profitable and necessary to reiterate the
elementary thought that no single country in its struggle has to “wait” for
the others, lest the idea of parallel international action be supplanted by
the idea of procrastinating international inaction. Without waiting for the
others, we begin and we continue the struggle on our own national soil in
complete certainty that our initiative will provide the impulse for the
struggle in other countries; and if this were not so, then it would be
hopeless to think—as is borne out both by historical experience and
theoretical considerations—that revolutionary Russia, for example,
would be able to maintain herself in the face of conservative Europe, or
that Socialist Germany could remain isolated in a capitalist world.

To view the perspectives of the social revolution within a national
framework is to succumb to the same national narrowness that forms the
content of “social patriotism”. Vaillant, until the close of his life,
regarded France as the chosen country of the social revolution, and
precisely in this sense he insisted upon its defence to the end. Lensch and
others, some hypocritically, others sincerely, believed that the defeat of
Germany means above all the destruction of the very foundation of the
social revolution. Lastly, our Tseretelis and Chernovs who, in our national
conditions, have repeated that sorry experiment of French ministerialism,
swear that their policy serves the cause of the revolution and therefore
has nothing in common with the policy of Guesde and Sembat.

Generally speaking it must not be forgotten that in social patriotism
there is active, in addition to the most vulgar reformism, a national
revolutionary messianism, which regards its national state as chosen for
introducing to humanity “socialism” or “democracy", be it on the ground of
its industrial development or of its democratic form and revolutionary
conquests. (If a completely triumphant revolution were actually conceivable
within the limits of a single, better prepared nation, this messianism,
bound up with the programme of national defence, would have its relative
historical justification. But in reality, it does not have it.) Defending
the national basis of the revolution which such methods as undermine the
international connections of the proletariat, really amounts to undermining
the revolution, which cannot begin otherwise than on the national basis,
but which cannot be completed on that basis in view of the present economic
and military-political interdependence of the European states, which has
never been so forcefully revealed as in this war. The slogan, the United
States of Europe, gives expression to this interdependence, which will
directly and immediately set the conditions for the concerted action of the
European proletariat in the revolution.

Social-patriotism which is in principle, if not always in fact, the
execution of social-reformism to the utmost extent and its adaptation to
the imperialist epoch, proposes to us in the present world catastrophe to
direct the policy of the proletariat along the lines of the ‘lesser
evil” by joining one of the warring groups. We reject this method. We say
that the European war, prepared by the entire preceding course of
development has placed point-blank the fundamental problems of modern
capitalist development as a whole; furthermore, that the line of direction
to be followed by the international proletariat and its national
detachments must not be determined by secondary political and national
features nor by problematical advantages of military preponderance of
either side (whereby these problematical advantages must he paid for in
advance with absolute renunciation of the independent policy of the
proletariat), but by the fundamental antagonism existing between the
international proletariat and the capitalist r4gime as a whole.

This is the only principled formulation of the question and, by its very
essence, it is revolutionary socialist in character. It alone provides a
theoretical and historical justification for the tactic of revolutionary
internationalism.

Denying support to the state—not in the name of a propaganda
circle but in the name of the most important class in society—in the
period of the greatest catastrophe, internationalism does not simply eschew
“sin” passively, but affirms that the fate of world development is no
longer linked for us with the fate of the national state; more than this,
that the latter has become a vise for development and must be overcome,
that is, replaced by a higher economic-cultural organization on a broader
foundation. If the problem of socialism were compatible with the framework
of the national state, then it would thereby become compatible with
national defence. But the problem of socialism confronts us on the
imperialist foundation, that is, under conditions in which capitalism
itself is forced violently to destroy the national-state framework it has
itself established.

The imperialist half-unification of Europe might be achieved, as we
tried to show, as a result of a decisive victory of one group of the great
powers as well as a consequence of an inconclusive outcome of the war. In
either instance, the unification of Europe would signify the complete
trampling underfoot of the principle of self-determination with respect to
all weak nations and the preservation and centralization of all the forces
and weapons of European reaction: monarchies, standing armies and secret
diplomacy.

The democratic republican unification of Europe, a union really capable
of guaranteeing the freedom of national development, is possible only on
the road of a revolutionary struggle against militarist, imperialist,
dynastic centralism, by means of uprisings in individual countries, with
the subsequent merger of these upheavals into a general European
revolution. The victorious European revolution, however, no matter how its
course in isolated countries may be fashioned, can, in consequence of the
absence of other revolutionary classes, transfer the power only to the
proletariat. Consequently the United States of Europe represents the
form—the only conceivable form—of the dictatorship of the
European proletariat.

A Postscript 1922

The assertion, repeated several times in the Programme of
Peace", to the effect that the proletarian revolution cannot be
victoriously consummated within a national framework may perhaps seem to
some readers to have been refuted by the five years experience of our
Soviet Republic. But such a conclusion would be unfounded. The fact that
the workers’ state has maintained itself against the entire world in
a single and, moreover, backward country testifies to the colossal power of
the proletariat, a power which in other more advanced, more civilized
countries, will truly be able to achieve miracles. But having defended
ourselves as a state in the political and military sense, we have not
arrived at nor even approached socialist society. The struggle for
revolutionary-state self-defence resulted in this interval in an extreme
decline of productive forces, whereas socialism is conceivable only on the
basis of their growth and blossoming. Trade negotiations with bourgeois
states, concessions, the Geneva Conference and so on are far too graphic
evidence of the impossibility of isolated socialist construction within a
national-state framework. So long as the bourgeoisie remains in power in
other European states we are compelled, in the struggle against economic
isolation, to seek agreements with the capitalist world; at the same time
it can be stated with certainty that these agreements, in the best case,
will help us heal this or that economic wound, make this or that step
forward, but the genuine rise of socialist economy in Russia will become
possible only after the victory of the proletariat in the most important
countries of Europe.

That Europe represents not only a geographic but also an economic
political term is graphically evidenced by the events in recent years: the
decline of Europe, the growth of the power of the United States, the
attempt of Lloyd George to “save” Europe by means of combined imperialist
and pacifist methods.

Today the European labour movement is in a period of defensive actions,
of gathering forces and making preparations. A new period of open
revolutionary battles for power will inexorably push to the fore the
question of the state interrelationships among the peoples of revolutionary
Europe. To the extent that the experience in Russia has projected the
Soviet state as the most natural form of the proletarian dictatorship, and
to the extent that the proletarian vanguard of other countries has adopted
in principle this state form, we may assume that with the resurgence of the
direct struggle for power, the European proletariat will advance the
programme of the Federated European Soviet Republic. The experience of
Russia in this connection is very instructive. It testifies to the complete
compatibility under the proletarian régime of the broadest national
and cultural autonomy and economic centralism. In this sense, the slogan of
the United States of Europe, translated into the language of the Soviet
state, not only preserves all its meaning but still promises to reveal its
colossal significance during the impending epoch of the social
revolution.

Endnotes

2 This is a
reference to an article by Lenin: ‘On the Slogan for a United States
of Europe’, published in Sotsial Demokrat, No. 44, August 23, 1915
and reproduced in Collected Works, vol. 21, pp. 339-43. The quote
is on p.342